• 


VOL.  XLIX.]  ESTABLISHED  BY  EDWARD  L.  YOUMANS.  [No.  6. 

APPLETONS' 
POPULAR  SCIENCE 


_ 

MONTHLY. 

ft 

OCTOBER,  1896. 

EDITED  BY  WILLIAM  JAY  YOUMANS. 

CONTENTS.  PAGB 

I.  The  Metric  System.     By  Prof.  T.  C.  MENDENHALL  ...............  721 

*W    II.  Nevada  Silver.     By  CHABLES  HOWABD  SHINN     (Illustrated.)  ......  734 

III.  A  Measure  of  Mental  Capacity.     By  Dr.  EMIL  KRAEPELIN  .....  .  .  756 

IV.  Some  Beginnings  in  Science.     By  Prof.  COLLIER  COBB.     (Illus.)  .  .  .  763 
V.  The  Vivisection  Question.     By  Prof.  C.  F.  HODGE.     (Concluded.)  .  .  771 

VI.  Acetylene,  the  New  Illuminant.     By  V.  J.  YOUMANS  .............  786 

VH.  The  Significance  of  Leaves.     By  F.  SCHUTLER  MATHEWS.     (Illus.)  .  793 

VIII.  The  Educative  Value  of  Children's  Questioning.    By  H.  L.  CLAPP.  .  799 

IX.  The  Self  and  its  Derangements.     By  Prof.  W.  ROMAINE  NEWBOLD.  810 

X.  Exaggeration  as  an  ^Esthetic  Factor.     By  M.  F.  REGNATJLT  .......  821 

XL  Enrico  Ferri  on  Homicide.    By  HELEN  ZIMMERN.    (Second  Paper.).  828 

XII.  Sketch  of  Robert  Empie  Rogers.     (With  Portrait.)  ..............  837 

XIII.  Correspondence  :  Woman's  Claims  to  the  Ballot—  A  Correction  ..........  842 

XIV.  Editor's  Table  :   Another  Bishop  on  Science  Teaching  in  Elementary  Schools. 

—The  Fourth  Buffalo  Meeting  of  the  American  Association  ...........    843 

XV.  Scientific  Literature  ...........................................  846 

XVI.  Fragments  of  Science  .........................................   855 

XVII.  Index  to  Volume  XLIX  .......................................  865 

NEW   YORK: 
D.     APPLETON      AND      COMPANY, 

72    FIFTH    AVENUE. 
SINGLE  NUMBER,  50  CENTS.  YEARLY  SUBSCRIPTION,  $5.00. 

COPYRIGHT,  1896,  BY  D.  APPLETON  AND  COMPANY. 
Entered  at  the  Post  Office  at  New  York,  and  admitted  for  transmission  through  the  mails  at  second-class  rates. 


Just  as  Good  a. 

»  i 

Scott's  Emulsior 

You  hear  it  in  nin< 

\ 

out  of  ten  drug  stores 
It  is  the  reluctan 
testimony  of  40,00( 
druggists  that  Scott' 
Emulsion  is  the  stan 
dard  of  the  world:  ; 

t 
i 

And  isn't  the  kind  all  others  try  to  range  up  to,  the  kind B 
you  to  buy?    Two  sizes,  50  cts.  and  $1.00. 


THE  METRIC  SYSTEM.  733 

commercial  arithmetic  none  is  comparable  to  that  of  expressii 
shmings,  pence,  and  farthings  as  decimals  of  a  pound.  The 
are  fl^reby  put  almost  upon  as  good  a  footing  as  if  the  country 
possessed  the  advantage  of  a  real  decimal  coinage."  He  then 
proceed^  to  develop  rules  by  means  of  which  any  sum  o 
money  nmy  be  expressed  in  pounds  and  decimals  exacly  as  our 
money  is  always  expressed  in  dollars  and  decimals,  s^that  any  re- 
quired operation  may  be  easily  performed  by  the  common  rules  of 
arithmetic,  y^fter  this  the  decimals  of  a  poun(L<must  be  reduced 
back  again  to  ^millings,  pence,  and  farthings.  To^show  how  the  Eng- 
lish system  leims  itself  to  easy  calculation,  ^Lquote  his  rule,  which 
is  only  approximately  correct,  for  makinafthe  latter  reduction : 
"  A  pair  of  shillings  for  every  unit,  infthe  first  place  ;  an  odd 
shitting  for  fifty  (Vf  there  be  fifty),  in  tJy$  second  and  third  places  ; 
and  a  farthing  fo\  every  thousandth  .left,  after  abating  one  if 
the  number  of  thousandths  left  ex/eed  twenty -four"  Can  any- 
thing be  more  charn^ngly  simpjfj  and  easily  carried  in  one's 
head  than  this  ? 

I  must  be  content  t&  stop  iftithout  reference  to  a  few  other 
points  raised  by  Mr.  SpSnce/  for  they  are  essentially  all  of  a 
kind.  There  is  a  sentimenwpnderlying  much  of  his  argument,  to 
which  I  must  briefly  referAowever,  because  it  has  shown  itself 
in  other  recent  discussioiw  oiVthis  subject.  I  refer  to  an  anxiety 
lest  the  "poor  man"  be^m  sofeie  way  injured  by  the  proposed 
reform.  It  has  come  JQ  be  theL-fashion  in  all  political  or  eco- 
nomical controversies/to  exhibilKa  consuming  interest  in  the 
poor  man's  welfare ;  /ndeed,  one  marvels  that  there  should  con- 
tinue to  be  any  po/r,  so  universal  aW}  so  intense  appears  to  be 
this  anxiety  to  smeld  them  from  alrVharm.  Fortunately,  the 
so-called  "  poor  n/an  "  is  not  so  blind  to  i&s  own  interests  as  some 
would  have  it  appear,  and  he  is  quite  ali^e  to  the  fact  that  the 
proposed  metr/iogical  reform  is  fully  as  important  to  him  as  to 
anybody. 

Finally,  \£  ought  to  be  understood  that  theV  advocates  of  the 
metric  system  do  not  assume  that  it  can  come  i^to  use  immedi- 
ately or  without  considerable  hardship.  It  took  nearly  a  century 
to  fairly  establish  our  decimal  money  system,  whichVo  one  would 
now  thiak  of  giving  up.  During  all  this  time  olck  units  and 
denomiimtions  continued  to  be  used  in  a  lessening  ctagree,  al- 
though*/not  authorized  by  law.  Something  of  the  kiM  must 
occur  jp  the  transfer  from  our  illogical,  brain-destroying^ime- 
consujffitag  system  of  weights  and  measures  for  the  more  pe^ect 
systeip  for  which  it  is  sure  to  make  way.  Furthermore,  tl 
hearlfcy  welcome  and  desire  the  presentation  of  all  argumenl 
agai|(§f  or  objections  to  the  metric  system,  believing  that  the 
more  widely  it  is  known  and  discussed  the  more  supporters  it 


734  POPULAR   SCIENCE  MONTHLY. 

will  have.  They  expect  to  meet  occasionally  such  "intelligent 
prejudice  "  as  is  exhibited  by  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer,  whose  contri- 
bution to  the  discussion  of  the  subject  is  sure  to  be  considered  in 
the  years  to  come  as  altogether  the  most  remarkable  to  be  found 
in  any  time  or  tongue. 


NEVADA  SILVER. 

» c  *ro 

1^   CHARLES  HOWARD  SHINN,  I 

A 

A  THIRD  of  a  century  ago  the  surface  bonanzas  of  the  Corn- 
stock  began  to  yield  their  treasures.  Californians  long 
skilled  in  gold  mining  were  rushing  by  thousands  into  the  newly 
discovered  silver  districts,  and  prospecting  the  mountains  and 
deserts  east  of  the  Sierras.  In  fact,  the  whole  Pacific  coast  was 
ringing  with  shouts  of  "  On  to  Washoe ! "  In  a  few  years  this 
obscure,  long-neglected  corner  of  western  Utah  became  the  State 
of  Nevada.  It  developed  a  multitude  of  mining  camps  besides  the 
Comstock  ;  it  created  new  forms  of  mining  skill,  maintained  vast 
dependent  industries,  contributed  revenues  to  distant  cities,  sent 
forth  new  groups  of  millionaires,  gave  to  the  world  new  types  of 
frontier  character,  and  added  a  dramatic  chapter  to  the  story  of 
American  commonwealths. 

The  land  itself  is  worth  a  moment's  attention.  It  is  a  high 
plateau,  gridironed  by  short,  parallel  mountain  chains,  the  most 
noted  of  which  is  the  Washoe  Range,  separated  from  the  Sierras 
by  a  line  of  small  Alpine  valleys,  and  rising,  in  Mount  Davidson, 
to  a  height  of  7,827  feet.  East,  south,  north,  extend  weary  miles 
of  desert,  relieved  by  a  few  oases.  The  scanty  rivers  of  Nevada 
soon  lose  themselves  in  alkaline  basins.  According  to  an  old 
frontiersman,  reported  by  Dan  De  Quille,  "the  Almighty  once 
started  out  leadin'  a  number  of  small  rivers  along,  meanin'  to 
unite  them  into  one  large  one,  and  take  it  to  the  Pacific.  But 
before  he  had  more  than  started  it  grew  late  Saturday  night,  so 
he  tucked  the  ends  down  into  the  sand,  where  they  have  remained 
ever  since." 

Stephen  T.  Gage,  of  the  Southern  Pacific  Railroad,  tells  an 
interesting  story  of  Horace  Greeley's  journey  acros"s  the  conti- 
nent. The  distinguished  editor  had  reached  Placerville,  Califor- 
nia, and  had  been  met  by  a  few  ardent  followers  on  horseback. 
The  boisterous  mountain  town  was  politically  opposed  to  Greeley, 
but  when  the  group  of  young  men,  of  whom  Gage  was  one, 
brought  him  out  on  the  plaza  for  a  speech,  a  great  crowd  as- 
sembled. f 

"I  believe,"  said  Greeley,  "that  God  never  made  anything 
without  a  purpose.  But  the  wilderness  that  I  have  crossed  is 


NEVADA    SILVER. 


735 


certainly  worthless  for  agriculture.  Unless  there  shall  prove  to 
be  great  mineral  wealth  there,  it  has  been  created  in  vain.  But 
if,  in  the  workings  of  Divine  Providence,  vast  treasure  houses  are 
revealed,  as  I  believe  there  will  be,  then,  my  friends,  it  will  take 
the  labor  of  a  hundred  thousand  California  miners  a  hundred 
thousand  years  even  to  prospect  it ! " 

Even  while  Greeley  spoke  a  small  group  of  ignorant  pros- 
pectors, climbing  the  canons  that  slope  south  from  Mount  David- 


CARSON  RIVEB  CANON. 

son,  were  approaching  the  Com  stock  ledge.  They  were,  in  fact, 
already  filling  their  rude  sluice-boxes  with  decomposed  rock  from 
the  giant  lode,  and  were 'washing  out  a  little  gold,  while  they 
threw  many  a  lump  of  nearly  pure  silver  down  the  gulches  with 
loud  imprecations  because  the  "  blue  stuff  "  clogged  the  machines. 
These  miners  were  the  remnants  of  several  larger  camps  that  had 
grown,  nourished,  and  fallen  into  ruins  in  western  Utah  during 
eight  or  ten  years,  but  they  were  not  the  first  settlers  of  the 
Nevada  region.  The  Oregon  trail  had  three  thousand  emigrants 


736  POPULAR   SCIENCE  MONTHLY. 

on  the  road  in  1846,  and  as  soon  as  the  shout,  " California  gold ! " 
was  heard,  the  deep-trampled  highways  across  the  desert  began 
to  be  strewed  with  wrecks  of  wagons  and  bodies  of  horses  and 
oxen.  Thousands  of  men  made  camp  after  camp  in  western  Utah 
without  washing  out  a  panful  of  dust  or  breaking  off  a  specimen 
of  quartz.  Meanwhile  Mormon  traders,  anxious  to  sell  supplies 
to  wagon  trains,  established  small  stations  along  the  trail.  These 
traders  were  often  colonists  sent  out  from  Salt  Lake,  under  strict 
orders  not  to  cross  the  mountains  and  not  to  mine  for  gold.  Ac- 
cording to  a  letter  in  the  Sacramento  Transcript  of  October  14, 
1850,  the  hungry  emigrants  were  often  forced  to  sell  "  a  horse,  an 
ox,  or  a  mule  for  twelve,  ten,  or  even  two  pounds  of  flour,"  and  in 
1849  matters  must  have  been  even  worse. 

Placer  gold  was  found  in  the  winter  of  1849  in  a  small  gulch 
near  Carson  Valley,  and  one  or  two  men  worked  the  deposit,  with 
poor  results.  The  wandering  Mormons  abandoned  their  trading 
posts,  but  in  1851  Colonel  Reese,  from  Salt  Lake,  made  a  perma- 
nent settlement.  With  him  came,  as  teamster,  bibulous,  feather- 
brained James  Fennimore,  afterward  known  on  the  Comstock  as 
"  Old  Virginia,"  who  soon  began  placer  mining  in  "  Gold  Canon." 
By  November  the  Carson  region  contained  about  twenty  settlers ; 
miners,  herdsmen,  and  nomads  of  every  description  increased  the 
whole  population  of  western  Utah  to  nearly  one  hundred.  Squat- 
ter government  began,  and  Congress,  with  unconscious  humor, 
was  petitioned  to  create  a  separate  Territory  for  this  handful  of 
settlers.  The  Utah  Legislature,  with  equally  unconscious  humor, 
endeavored  to  hold  the  region  by  dividing  it  into  seven  huge 
parallelograms  of  counties,  only  one  of  which  appears  to  have 
contained  any  people.  The  judge  sent  to  Carson  County  was 
referred  by  the  Gold  Canon  miners  to  their  local  "  rules,  usages, 
and  customs,"  adopted  in  the  main  from  California  camps. 

Local  traditions  contain  much  that  is  worth  passing  notice. 
Israel  Mott,  for  instance,  "built  his  house  out  of  the  beds  of 
abandoned  emigrant  wagons."  "  Ragtown,"  on  the  Carson,  re- 
ceived its  name  because  of  vast  heaps  of  rubbish  that  marked  the 
camp  where  the  incoming  host  "  ran  into  the  water  waist  deep  to 
drink  like  animals,"  and  threw  their  desert-worn  garments  in 
heaps  on  the  cacti  and  sagebrush.  The  last  night  of  1853  there 
was  a  dance  "  in  the  log  house  over  Spafford  Hall's  store  "  at  the 
mouth  of  Gold  Cafion.  Eight  women  were  present,  and  this 
number  constituted  "  two  thirds  of  all  the  white  women  in  west- 
ern Utah."  Of  white  men  there  were  about  a  hundred — from 
Lucky  Bill's,  Fort  Churchill,  Twenty-six-Mile  Desert,  Eagle 
Ranch,  and  other  settlements,  as  well  as  from  the  placer  mines. 

In  1857  the  Mormon  settlers  were  called  back  to  Salt  Lake  by 
a  messenger  from  the  Prophet.  Some  fifty  families  left  claims, 


NEVADA    SILVER.  737 

cabins,  water  ditches,  and  other  property,  loaded  one  hundred  and 
fifty-three  wagons,  and  were  on  the  road  in  three  weeks.  A  few 
years  later  one  of  them,  the  noted  Orson  Hyde,  wrote  to  the  pos- 
sessors of  a  sawmill  he  had  built,  demanding  its  return,  and  add- 
ing :  "  This  demand  of  ours  remaining  uncanceled  shall  be  to  the 
people  of  Carson  and  Wassau  as  was  the  ark  of  God  among  the 
Philistines.  You  shall  be  visited  of  the  Lord  of  hosts  with  thun- 
der and  with  earthquakes  and  with  floods,  with  pestilence  and 
with  famine,  until  your  names  are  not  known  among  men."  The 
letter  was  printed,  and  the  camps  of  1860  rang  with  loud  laughter. 
But  in  1857  no  one  could  see  anything  amusing  in  the  departure 
of  the  Mormons.  Emigrant  travel  had  ceased,  traders  had  gone, 
villages  were  deserted,  plows  left  in  the  furrows,  cabin  doors 
flung  open.  Even  Gold  Canon  placers  were  nearly  exhausted. 
Everything  seemed  "  played  out." 

The  early  miners  of  Nevada  knew  nothing  of  prospecting  as  a 
business.  They  were  so  thoughtless  and  ignorant  that  it  never 
occurred  to  them  to  look  for  the  source  of  the  metal  they  were 
obtaining  in  Gold  Canon  and  other  ravines  that  headed  in  Mount 
Davidson.  The  little  gold  they  found  became  more  and  more 
alloyed  with  silver,  so  that  its  value  decreased  from  nineteen 
dollars  an  ounce  to  twelve  dollars.  The  camp  of  Johnstown  in 
Gold  Canon,  where  they  wintered,  dwindled  in  size,  and  discour- 
aged miners  went  to  other  districts.  Meanwhile  two  prospectors 
of  education  and  ability,  the  Grosh  brothers,  were  secretly  ex- 
ploring the  Washoe  Mountains  for  silver.  Their  letters  home 
prove  that  they  found  "a  monster  vein  "  and  other  good  pros- 
pects, and  they  began  to  organize  companies  in  the  Atlantic 
States  and  in  California  to  work  these  claims.  But  one  brother 
died  from  an  accident  early  in  1857 ;  the  other  lost  his  life  in  the 
Sierra  the  following  winter.  The  first  knowledge  of  the  Corn- 
stock  perished  with  these  two  brave,  thoughtful,  reticent  young 
prospectors. 

All  the  men  who  aided  in  the  discovery  of  the  famous  mines 
wintered  in  Johnstown  in  December,  1858.  Among  them  was  one 
Henry  Thomas  Paige  Comstock,  a  curiously  ignorant,  credulous, 
and  speculative  miner,  familiarly  known  as  "  Old  Pancake."  "  My 
first  recollection,"  he  wrote,  "  is  packing  beaver  traps ;  trapped 
all  over  Canada,  Michigan,  Indiana,  and  the  Rocky  Mountains." 
Comstock,  "Old  Virginia,"  Peter  O'Riley,  Pat  McLaughlin, 
"  Kentuck "  Osborne,  "  Long  John "  Bishop,  Manny  Penrod, 
Sandy  Bowers,  and  a  few  others  had  been  more  or  less  together. 
Sometimes  they  were  in  Gold  Canon,  sometimes  in  Six  Mile  Caiion, 
sometimes  crossing  from  the  head  of  one  to  the  head  of  the  other, 
along  the  side  of  Mount  Davidson,  over  the  top  of  the  Comstock 
ledge.  In  January,  1859,  a  streak  of  warm  weather  tempting 


738  POPULAR   SCIENCE  MONTHLY. 

some  of  them  out,  Comstock,  "  Old  Virginia,"  and  several  others 
found  "surface  diggings"  near  "  Slippery  Gulch."  They  named 
the  place  "  Gold  Hill,"  and,  staking  out  claims,  proceeded  to  work 
the  decomposed  outcroppings  over  Crown  Point,  Yellow  Jacket, 
Belcher,  Kentuck,  and  other  great  mines  as  yet  undiscovered. 
From  the  time  they  started  the  rockers,  using  water  from  a  spring 
close  by,  Gold  Hill  averaged  twenty  dollars  a  day  to  the  man. 
June  1st,  O'Riley  and  McLaughlin,  whose  claim  in  Six  Mile  Canon 
paid  only  two  or  three  dollars  a  day,  suddenly  cut  into  the  rock 
on  the  surface  of  Ophir,  at  the  north  end  of  the  Comstock,  and 
began  to  take  out  gold  at  the  rate  of  a  thousand  dollars  a  day. 
They  had  only  been  working  a  few  hours  when  Comstock  hap- 
pened along,  saw  the  value  of  the  discovery,  laid  a  general  float- 
ing claim  to  a  mythical  stock  ranch  in  the  region,  and  fairly 
bluffed  the  good-natured  discoverers  into  taking  himself  and 
Manny  Penrod  as  equal  partners.  "Kentuck"  Osborne  after- 
ward came  in,  and  the  five  took  up  the  original  Ophir  claim. 

The  miners  in  the  region  soon  staked  out  claims  around  Gold 
Hill  and  Ophir.  "  Dutch  Nick  "  started  a  saloon  and  restaurant 
in  a  tent.  "  Old  Virginia  "  went  on  a  spree  one  night  and  chris- 
tened the  north-end  camp  "Virginia  City."  Comstock  bubbled 
with  happiness,  and  flung  his  money  broadcast.  But  a  rancher 
from  Truckee  Meadows,  visiting  the  camp,  picked  up  some  of  the 
despised  "  blue  stuff  "from  the  waste  heap  of  Ophir,  and  after- 
ward gave  it  to  Judge  Walsh,  of  Grass  Valley,  California,  with 
the  remark  that  "  over  in  Washoe  the  miners  were  throwing  it 
away."  An  assayer  reported  it  to  be  nearly  pure  silver.  This 
happened  about  midnight,  and  before  dawn  Judge  Walsh  was 
miles  on  the  road  to  Virginia  City,  while  hundreds  of  other  men 
were  making  ready  to  follow.  The  Truckee  Meadows  rancher 
paid  no  attention  to  the  excitement  he  had  caused,  but  went 
quietly  back  to  his  farm.  When  Judge  Walsh  reached  the  camp 
Comstock  sold  for  $11,000,  only  $10  of  which  was  paid  down. 
McLaughlin  soon  sold  for  $3,500,  Osborne  for  $7,000,  Penrod  for 
$3,000.  Careless,  ignorant,  the  first  Comstockers  were  blown 
aside  like  leaves  in  a  whirlwind.  They  spent  their  money  and 
drifted  off  here  and  there,  pursued  by  ill-fortune.  McLaughlin 
was  soon  cooking  for  a  gang  of  men  at  $40  a  month  ;  "  Old  Vir- 
ginia," while  on  a  spree  in  1861,  was  thrown  from  a  horse  and 
killed  ;  Comstock,  who  had  parted  with  his  interests  exactly  two 
months  after  the  ledge  was  struck,  branched  out  into  financial 
and  matrimonial  ventures,  spent  every  dollar,  wandered  over 
Idaho  and  Montana  vainly  looking  for  another  fortune,  and  in 
1870  committed  suicide.  Sandy  Bowers,  who  was  considered  a 
millionaire,  went  to  Europe  with  his  wife  "  to  see  the  queen,"  and 
"  had  money  to  throw  at  the  birds."  He  built  a  costly  stone  man- 


740  POPULAR   SCIENCE  MONTHLY. 

sion  in  Washoe  Valley  before  birds  of  prey  obtained  all  his 
money.  His  widow,  the  "Washoe  Seeress,"  made  a  living  for 
years  by  curiously  futile  predictions  regarding  the  stock  market, 
and  still  reads  the  future  for  those  who  care  to  listen.  One  after 
another  all  the  placer-mining  Comstockers  went  down  before  the 
rush  of  silver  seekers. 

That  rush  was  in  many  respects  the  most  remarkable  one  that 
California  ever  had  known.  Decidedly  the  best  account  was 
written  by  J.  Ross  Browne,  who  made  his  Peep  at  Washoe  a 
classic  of  early  Nevada.  Stirred,  he  says,  by  the  shout  of  "  Sil- 
ver !  silver !  Acres  of  it !  Miles  of  it !  "  he  left  San  Francisco  in 
March,  1860,  and  made  his  way  to  Placerville.  Beyond  this  point 
there  were  no  stages.  The  town  was  full  of  men  anxious  to  cross 
the  mountains,  and  "practicing  for  Washoe"  in  the  saloons. 
Every  sign  bore  Washoe  in  large  letters.  Pack  trains  were  start- 
ing daily  for  the  mines.  No  animal  could  be  had  for  love  or 
money.  "  Lodging  accommodations "  consisted  of  enough  floor 
space  on  which  to  lie  in  one's  blanket. 

The  next  morning  Browne  started  on  foot.  The  muddy  trail 
was  literally  lined  with  broken-down  vehicles  and  goods  of  every 
description.  He  stopped  at  nightfall  in  "  Dirty  Mike's  "  shanty, 
in  which  the  bar  and  the  public  bedroom  were  the  chief  features. 
The  second  day  hundreds  of  persons  were  in  sight  along  the  trail — 
men  with  wheelbarrows,  handcarts,  donkeys,  mules ;  gamblers  on 
fancy  mustangs,  whisky  peddlers,  organ  grinders,  drovers,  Mexi- 
cans. Rain,  snow,  and  slush  prevailed  for  miles  before  he  reached 
the  log  cabins  of  Strawberry.  There  he  slept  on  the  floor  with 
about  forty  other  pilgrims,  and  had  his  stockings  stolen,  which 
"  were  above  gold  or  silver  in  this  foot- weary  land."  Three  feet 
of  snow  in  the  morning,  four  hundred  men  in  the  camp,  and  pro- 
visions low ;  eight  hard  miles  to  the  summit,  nine  more  to  Wood- 
ford's.  Browne  and  several  others  tried  the  trail,  but  were  forced 
to  return  to  Strawberry.  The  next  day  he  tried  it  alone.  The 
trail  was  over  old  snow,  honeycombed  with  holes  hidden  by  the 
new  snowfall;  pack  trains  were  floundering  through  and  occa- 
sionally falling  into  the  canons.  Wind  and  sleet  all  day ;  mud 
knee  deep  in  Hope  Valley ;  all  in  all  a  terrible  day's  experience. 
The  fifth  day  Browne's  course  was  along  the  Carson.  He  was  so 
worn  out  that  he  could  only  cover  about  eighteen  miles  between 
sunrise  and  nine  o'clock  at  night.  The  sixth  day  he  arrived  at 
Carson  City,  and  took  the  stage  for  the  mines. 

Virginia  City,  as  Ross  Browne  saw  it  in  the  spring  of  1860, 
lay  outspread  on  a  slope  of  mountains,  speckled  with  snow  and 
sagebrush  and  mounds  of  upturned  earth.  The  dwellings  were 
rude  board  shanties ;  tents  of  blankets,  sacks,  old  shirts,  and  can- 
vas ;  huts  of  mud  and  rock,  caves  in  the  hillside,  and  hollow  heaps 


NEVADA    SILVER.  741 

of  brush.  Piles  of  goods  were  scattered  about  in  the  rain  and 
snow.  A  scathing  wind,  the  "Washoe  zephyr,"  tore  the  huts 
apart  and  filled  the  air  with  gravel.  Crowds  were  gathered  in 
open  places,  trading  claims  or  fighting  over  them.  Other  crowds 
were  drinking  and  gambling  in  the  numerous  saloons.  Rough, 
unkempt,  unwashed  miners,  speculators,  bummers,  thieves,  cut- 
throats filled  the  raw,  unsightly  mining  camp  with  horrible  con- 
fusion. "  In  truth,"  says  our  artless  adventurer, "  there  was  much 
to  confirm  the  foreboding  with  which  I  had  entered  the  Devil's 
Gate." 

In  a  short  time  the  demands  of  the  Washoe  country  developed 
a  complete  system  of  transportation  over  three  great  toll  roads, 
the  finest  on  the  Pacific  coast.  Massive  freight  wagons,  marking 
in  every  detail  the  utmost  skill  of  California  workers  in  wood 
and  iron,  carried  all  the  supplies  for  Nevada.  Bearded  and 
weather-beaten  freighters,  who  were  also  owners  of  their  outfits, 
walked  beside  the  great  mule  teams.  Each  freighter  carried  his 
rod  of  empire,  a  short  hickory  handle  to  which  was  attached  a 
long,  close-plaited  whiplash  as  big  as  one's  wrist  at  the  swelling 
part.  At  first  receiving  twenty-five  cents  a  pound  for  whatever 
was  carried  between  Sacramento  and  Virginia  City,  and  hauling 
a  thousand  pounds  to  the  animal,  the  freighter  in  a  year  or  so 
was  able  to  move  twenty-four  tons  besides  the  wagons,  with  a 
sixteen-mule  team,  at  a  cost  of  four  cents  a  pound  for  the  entire 
distance.  It  is  said  that  there  is  not  on  record  in  courts  or  news- 
papers a  single  instance  of  the  loss  of  goods  in  transit  either  by 
fraud,  force,  or  carelessness  during  all  the  years  of  the  Nevada 
freighter's  glory. 

One  stage  line  carried  twelve  thousand  passengers  to  Nevada  in 
1863.  Schedule  time  in  1861  had  been  three  days  for  the  one  hun- 
dred and  sixty-two  miles,  but  it  was  soon  reduced  to  eighteen 
hours.  Three  wealthy  mining  operators  were  once  taken  from 
Virginia  City  to  the  steamboat  wharf  in  Sacramento  in  twelve 
hours  and  twenty-three  minutes.  Old  travelers  still  recall  with 
pleasure  the  ride  across  the  mountains  on  the  Placerville  route. 
Its  most  striking  moment  was  when  one  first  saw  from  the  summit 
of  the  pass  the  hyacinthine  waters  of  sealike  Tahoe  and  the  level 
desert.  "The  eastward-gazing  grizzly  bear,"  to  quote  from  one 
of  the  stories  written  by  an  old  Elko  silver  miner,  the  late  Dr. 
Gaily, "  lifts  his  flexible  nostril  to  sniff  the  odor  of  the  arid  waste, 
then  slowly  turns  and  prowls  westward.  There  is  a  visible  line 
eastward  where  two  worlds  appear  to  meet.  Beyond  is  the  great 
'empire  of  Artemisia/  where  gold  and  silver  were  married  in 
the  volcanic  chambers  of  the  awful  past.  One  sees  the  land  of 
Washoe  outstretched  from  the  mountain  tops,  with  its  browns 
and  grays,  its  arid  junipers  and  dull  nut  pines,  its  crags  of  lime- 


742  POPULAR   SCIENCE  MONTHLY. 

stone,  basalt,  porphyry,  granite,  in  naked  barrenness.  There, 
underfoot,"  writes  Dr.  Gaily,  "the  world  is  dry,  gray,  silent. 
Overhead,  during  the  long  cloudless  day,  it  is  pale  blue,  dry, 
silent.  All  abroad  it  is  gray  or  dark  with  mountain  distance,  and 
it  is  silent.  Silence  is  everywhere.  No  roar  of  far-off  torrents 
tumbling  down  the  hills  to  jar  the  night  air  underneath  the  stars 
—the  stars  still  are,  but  all  the  torrents  have  departed.  At  some 
lost  period  backward  of  all  dates,  the  Great  High  Sheriff  of  the 
universe  in  open  court  has  cried  Silence  and  has  been  obeyed." 

Into  such  a  land  the  silver  seekers  came,  and  it  claimed  them 
for  its  own.  Soil,  climate,  topography,  environment,  began  to 
create  the  Nevada  type,  with  its  large  freedom,  its  quick  com- 
prehension, its  broadly  humorous  buoyancy,  and  similar  charac- 
teristics that  one  finds  abundantly  illustrated  in  such  books  as 
Mark  Twain's  Roughing  It  and  in  the  writings  of  a  great  group 
of  younger  newspaper  men.  "  Desperate  climatic  humor  "  is  what 
Dr.  Gaily  calls  it.  Occasionally  an  old  copy  of  an  early  Nevada 
newspaper  turns  up,  fairly  scintillating  with  wit  and  sarcasm, 
but  for  the  most  part  the  files  have  been  destroyed  in  the  great 
fires.  Said  brave  old  De  Quille,  companion  reporter  with  Mark 
Twain  on  the  Territorial  Enterprise  : 

"  I  used  to  make  the  newspaper  my  notebook  for  years,  and  I 
thought  what  a  book  I  could  write  some  day  out  of  that  note- 
book ;  but  now  I  don't  know  of  a  single  file  in  existence." 

Still  there  are  gleams  of  the  past  in  stray  copies  that  have 
escaped  the  fires.  Senator  Stewart  was  the  most  prominent  man 
on  the  Comstock  in  the  days  before  Sharon,  and  the  Gold  Hill 
News,  amazed  at  his  audacity,  once  likened  him  to  the  Colossus 
of  Rhodes — he  was  as  large  and  contained  as  much  brass.  Mark 
Twain,  in  his  forgotten  Proceedings  of  the  Third  House,  once 
burlesqued  nearly  every  member  of  the  Constitutional  Conven- 
tion of  1863.  Larrowe,  of  Landor,  for  instance,  was  made  to 
glorify  the  "  nine  sceptered  and  anointed  quartz  mills  "  of  his  dis- 
trict until  the  president  ordered  him  to  "hold  his  clatter"  and 
drop  Reese  River  quartz-mill  statistics.  Mr.  Stewart,  after  a  long 
speech  on  miners'  taxes,  was  told :  "  Take  your  seat,  Bill  Stewart. 
I  have  been  reporting  and  reporting  that  same  infernal  speech  of 
yours  for  thirty  days.  .  .  .  You  and  your  bed-rock  tunnels  and 
your  blighted  miners'  blasted  hopes  have  gotten  to  be  a  sort  of 
nightmare  to  me  and  I  won't  put  up  with  it  any  longer."  The 
wealth  of  material  in  this  field  would  fill  volumes  instead  of 
paragraphs. 

Hardly  had  the  first  rich  ore  been  taken  from  the  Comstock 
when  an  age  of  litigation  commenced.  The  early  claims  overlapped 
and  were  badly  defined,  some  being  taken  up  under  placer  rules, 
others  as  quartz  claims,  and  all  without  accurate  surveys.  Mat- 


NEVADA    SILVER.  743 

ters  went  from  bad  to  worse,  as  every  one  had  access  to  the  record 
book  in  the  pioneer  camp,  and  most  of  the  prospectors  changed 
their  stakes  and  boundaries  as  often  as  seemed  best.  The  most 
casual  study  of  the  Comstock  region  in  1860  reveals  the  wildest 
Walpurgis-night  revels  of  conflicting  claims  of  every  size,  shape, 
and  age  tumbling  over  each  other  three  and  four  deep.  Besides, 
the  Virginia  lode  was  parallel  to  the  Comstock,  and  many  lesser 
veins  crossed  it  or  ran  near,  thus  giving  rise  to  the  great  legal 
problem  of  the  day,  Was  the  Comstock  one  ledge  or  two  ledges  ? 

Then  followed  the  famous  mining  cases  that  fill  volume  after 
volume  of  the  Nevada  reports — Savage  against  the  Bowers  Com- 
pany, Chollar  against  Potosi  (pronounced  Potosee*  by  all  old 
"  Comstockers "),  Burning  Moscow  against  Ophir,  and  others  of 


FLASH-LIGHT  OF  DEILLS  IN  NEVADA  MINE. 

equal  interest.  The  total  number  of  lawsuits  for  twelve  mines 
during  this  period  is  245,  and  168  of  these  were  "  actions  brought " 
to  dispossess  the  claimants  of  ground  that,  under  the  single- 
ledge  theory,  belonged  to  the  first  locators.  The  direct  cost  of 
this  litigation  was  $10,000,000,  or  one  fifth  of  the  entire  product 
of  the  lode  during  the  fighting  period.  Pitched  battles  occurred 
underground ;  mines  were  flooded  with  water  or  filled  with  smoke. 
Forts  were  built,  armed  men  employed,  and  battles  fought  on  dis- 
puted claims.  Some  of  the  best  mining  lawyers  of  America  were 
trained  in  this  age  of  litigation.  Stewart,  known  as  "  Old  Invin- 
cible," tireless  in  devotion  to  his  clients,  received  $100,000  from 
Belcher  and  $30,000  as  a  single  fee  from  Yellow  Jacket.  The 
reputation  of  the  Territorial  courts  suffered,  and  some  of  the 
judges  resigned  under  stress  of  public  wrath.  Lord,  in  his  His- 
tory of  the  Comstock,  sums  up  the  period  from  1860  to  1865  with 


POPULAR   SCIENCE  MONTHLY. 

the  terse  remark  that  "  the  Washoe  bar  at  that  time  was  hardly  a 
nursery  for  tender  consciences." 

The  first  problem  that  troubled  the  miners  in  the  midst  of 
their  lawsuits  was  how  to  handle  the  immense  bodies  of  ore.  To 
develop  the  various  claims  by  means  of  the  usual  shafts,  tunnels, 
.1  rifts,  cross-cuts,  and  other  underground  workings  was  unusually 
difficult.  The  vein  matter  of  the  great  fissure  varies  from  100 
feet  to  1,500  feet  in  width.  The  whole  body  was  once  a  seething 
mass  of  fire  and  steam.  It  still  remains  in  many  places  so  hot 
that  the  appliances  of  modern  science  hardly  enable  the  miners  to 
accomplish  any  work.  The  ledge  first  sloped  west,  became  ver- 
tical at  about  200  feet  down,  and  then  bent  toward  the  east,  thus 
necessitating  a  second  and  finally  a  third  line  of  shafts.  Machin- 
ery for  pumping,  for  hoisting,  for  ventilating  and  lighting  the 
depths  of  the  mines,  had  to  be  constructed  upon  a  larger  scale 
than  ever  before  attempted.  As  the  ore  bodies  were  opened  they 
were  found  to  be  so  wide  that  the  timbering  system  failed  entire- 
ly. A  new  method,  known  as  the  "  Deidesheimer  square  sets/' 
was  invented,  which  is  still  in  use  in  all  large  mines.  It  consists 
of  short  timbers  mortised  together  in  frames  that  can  be  built  up 
to  any  height  or  width,  like  the  adding  of  cells  to  a  honeycomb. 
A  few  years  later  the  mines  siphoned  water  from  the  Sierras 
under  a  pressure  of  1,720  feet.  Incidentally  the  miners  invented 
the  V  flume  to  carry  lumber  down  the  Sierra  slopes.  The  annual 
supply  of  timber  for  the  mines  amounted  by  1866  to  25,000,000 
feet  of  lumber  and  170,000  cords  of  fuel.  The  consumption  of 
both  increased  steadily  until  in  bonanza  days  80,000,000  feet  of 
lumber  annually  disappeared  into  the  drifts  and  chambers  and 
250,000  cords  of  wood  went  up  in  smoke  and  flame. 

Metallurgists,  too,  found  endless  study  in  the  methods  of  re- 
ducing Comstock  ore.  Beginning  with  slow  Mexican  arastras 
and  patio  yards,  adopting  in  1860  California  stamp  mills,  and 
modifying  the  amalgamating  apparatus  to  save  the  silver,  the 
modern  "  Washoe  process  "  was  finally  adopted,  though  only  after 
years  of  costly  experiments.  For  a  time  every  one  went  rainbow- 
chasing  for  something  to  perform  impossible  chemical  feats.  One 
pioneer  mill  man  used  to  put  strong  decoctions  of  cedar  and  juni- 
per bark  into  his  amalgamation  pans ;  others  actually  used  sage- 
brush tea,  it  being  argued  that  Nature  had  created  the  otherwise 
worthless  shrub  for  the  express  purpose  of  getting  the  metal  out 
of  Nevada's  mountains !  Persons  with  secret  processes  overran 
the  mining  districts,  each  one  with  the  whole  trick  contained  in  a 
little  bottle  in  his  vest  pocket,  ready  for  a  consideration  to  pour  a 
few  drops  into  the  amalgamating  pan.  San  Francisco  was  ran- 
sacked for  drugs  to  put  into  the  batteries  with  the  pulverized  ore. 
Alum,  saltpeter,  borax,  potash,  all  the  acids  obtainable,  tobacco 


NEVADA    SILVER. 


745 


enough  for  a  "sheep-dip,"  a  multitude  of  articles  never  before 
used  by  miners,  such  were  some  of  the  contents  of  the  Nevada 
mill  men's  witch  caldrons  in  the  early  sixties.     "The  object  ap- 
peared to  be,"  says  an  amused 
observer,  "to  physic  the  silver 
out  of  the  rock." 

Slowly,  after  immeasurable 
waste,  crude  methods  gave  way 
to  better  ones.  Mills  were  built 
in  Washoe  Valley,  in  the  canons, 
and  on  the  Comstock,  but  the 
greater  number  were  along  the 
Carson  River,  so  as  to  be  run  by 
water  power.  No  less  than  76 
mills,  costing  over  $6,000,000  and 
carrying  1,200  stamps,  were  in 
operation  before  the  end  of  1861. 
Some  of  the  mills  of  the  period 
are  still  remembered  for  their  ex- 
travagant construction.  Gould 
and  Curry  built  one  on  a  ter- 
raced hill  where  the  mine  owners 
spent  about  $1,000,000  in  pic- 
turesque and  useless  magnifi- 
cence. After  a  few  years,  when 
their  bonanza  began  to  fail,  it 
was  found  that  the  reduction  of 
their  ore  was  costing  fifty  dol- 
lars a  ton.  The  machinery  was 
thrown  aside,  and  it  required 
$600,000  to  put  the  mill  in  work- 
ing order  again.  Everywhere, 
through  years  of  readjustment, 
mills  were  torn  to  pieces,  rebuilt, 
enlarged,  made  to  do  better  and 
better  work,  until  the  results 
produced  when  the  great  bonan- 
za mines  were  running  at  full  speed  attracted  the  attention  of 
mill  men  all  over  the  world. 

What  is  known  on  the  Comstock  as  the  old  group  of  bonanzas 
began  comparatively  near  the  surface.  The  yield  of  the  diggings 
of  1859  had  been  about  $100,000  for  the  entire  lode.  In  1860  it 
yielded  in  round  numbers  $2,000,000.  After  that  the  mines  were 
developed  so  fast  that  by  1865  the  output  of  Storey  County,  most 
of  it  from  the  Comstock,  was  $9,500,000.  During  twelve  years 
after  1859  the  product  of  all  the  Comstock  mines  was  $145,000,000. 

VOL.    XLIX. 58 


KUINS  OF  OLD  MILL  NEAR  THE  COMSTOCK. 


746  POPULAR   SCIENCE  MONTHLY. 

Work  went  on  with  increasing  zeal.  Mines  that  were  in  "bor- 
-,"  or  barren  rock,  were  kept  going  by  immense  assessments. 
If  the  present  business  methods  that  prevail  in  mining  had  been 
adopted  on  the  Comstock,  half  of  this  enormous  yield  of  $145,000,- 
000  would  have  been  clear  profit,  but  the  greater  part  of  every 
bonanza  went  into  running  and  extraordinary  expenses.  Reck- 
less waste  and  superb  enterprise  seemed  to  go  hand  in  hand.  The 
numbers  of  relatives  and  friends  that  the  owners  of  the  mines 
managed  to  support  l.y  making  positions  for  them  ran  hardly  be 
reckoned.  Everybody,  from  servant  girls  to  bankers,  speculated 
iu  Comstocks  and  other  mining  shares. 

In  l>»;o  more  than  five  thousand  claims  within  thirty  miles  of 
Virginia  City  were  "  on  the  market."  Frenzied  prospectors  were 
marking  out  thousands  more,  until  the  most  remote  corners  of 
the  desert  were  "pegged  down  with  claim  stakes"  set  on  indi- 
cations which  were  seldom  attractive  to  a  mineralogist.  Iron 
pyrites  and  all  sorts  of  worthless  combinations  seemed  as  good  as 
gold  or  silver  to  the  enterprising  adventurers.  Before  long  men 
were  claiming  to  have  found  huge  ledges  of  iridium,  platinum, 
and  plumbago.  One  Washoe  speculator  being  told  by  a  gentle- 
man that  an  ambergris  mine  would  be  valuable,  replied  that  he 
had  just  staked  out  one !  A  company  tunneled  for  weeks  into 
the  granite  of  Mount  Davidson  in  order  to  tap  an  alleged  lake  of 
coal  oil. 

No  one  can  reckon  up  the  number  of  prospect  holes  that  dot 
Nevada.  Millions  of  them,  mere  ragged  cuts  or  pits  in  the  tawny 
hillsides,  make  wind-blown  heaps  on  every  hand  between  the 
clumps  of  dark  sagebrush  and  the  dull  yellow  of  an  occasional 
sunflower.  Only  one  prospect  hole  in  a  hundred  ever  material- 
ized into  a  recorded  claim ;  only  one  claim  in  a  thousand  ever 
became  a  mine.  Up  to  1880  Virginia  City  and  Gold  Hill  alone 
had  16,000  registered  claims,  and  less  than  a  dozen  really  great 
mines.  To  sum  it  up,  the  amount  of  dead  work  and  wasted  capi- 
tal in  every  mining  region  almost  surpasses  belief.  Ruins  of 
mills  and  dwellings,  nameless  graves  in  the  canons,  fragments  of 
old  trails  washed  by  the  storms  of  thirty  winters,  are  all  that 
mark  the  sites  of  many  once- aspiring  districts.  In  Esmeralda 
and  White  Pine,  which  the  late  Dr.  DeGroot  used  to  call  "  those 
Golgothas  of  Nevada  speculators,"  what  millions  were  fruitlessly 
scattered ! 

The  entire  history  of  the  Comstock  lode  is  revealed  by  the  as- 
sessments, dividends,  and  fluctuations  of  the  stocks  of  separate 
mines.  Before  the  close  of  1861  eighty-six  companies  were  work- 
ing on  or  near  the  grea*t  lode.  Gould  and  Curry,  a  marvelously 
rich  mine,  declared  $2,908,800  in  dividends  in  1863  and  1864.  This 
was  upon  an  actual  investment  of  less  than  $200,000.  But  the  ex- 


NEVADA    SILVER. 


747 


penses  of  the  mine,  which  worked  110,000  tons  of  ore  during  those 
two  years,  were  nearly  $6,000,000.  It  is  believed  that  twice  as 
much  could  easily  have  been  paid  in  dividends,  but,  as  the  presi- 
dent of  the  company  said,  "every  shareholder  was  crazy  and 
wanted  it  snaked  out  at  once  at  any  cost."  Gould  and  Curry, 
July  1,  1863,  was  selling  at  $6,300  per  foot  (the  old  way  of  meas- 
uring values) ;  in  July,  1864,  it  was  worth  only  $900.  Belcher 
was  one  of  the  dividend  mines  of  the  Comstock,  having  paid 
$16,000,000  up  to  1880.  It  had  104,000  shares  after  1869.  In  that 
year  prices  ranged  from  $12  to  $35 ;  in  1870,  sank  from  $36  to  $1 ; 
in  January,  1871,  rose  to  $6,  and  in  December  to  $450 ;  in  Janu- 


ALTA  MINE,  MILL,  AND  DUMP,  GOLD  HILL. 

ary,  1872,  sank  to  $6,  and  in  April  rose  to  $1,525,  fluctuating  all 
that  summer  down  to  $1.50,  up  to  $95,  and  back  and  forth  after 
this  fashion  for  years.  Once  it  rose  in  a  month  from  25  cents  to 
$113  a  share.  Out  of  103  Washoe  mines  listed,  only  six  ever  paid 
more  money  in  dividends  than  they  levied  in  assessments.  These 
six  were  Consolidated  Virginia,  California,  Belcher,  Crown  Point, 
Gould  and  Curry,  and  Kentuck.  Some  of  the  assessments  levied 
upon  mines  that  never  paid  a  cent  to  the  stockholders  remain  un- 
paralleled in  mining  history.  Ten  mines  sank  nearly  $17,000,000 
before  1880.  Assessments  on  Bullion  were  $3,352,000;  on  Over- 
man, $3,162,800.  Alta,  Baltimore,  Caledonia,  Mexico,  Imperial— 
these  and  other  non-producers  are  still  remembered  with  sorrow 
by  thousands  of  investors. 


748  POPULAR   SCIENCE  MONTHLY. 

Nevertheless,  viewed  as  a  whole,  the  Coinstock  was  immense- 
ly profitable.  In  twenty-one  years  from  the  summer  of  1859, 
according  to  Government  reports,  the  mines  levied  in  assess- 
ments $62,000,000.  The  dividends  paid  during  the  same  period 
aggregated  $118,000,000.  Striking  a  cash  balance,  the  Comstock 
ledger  shows  an  actual  profit  of  $50,000,000.  The  total  bullion 
yield  for  the  same  period  was  $306,000,000.  Subtracting  divi- 
dends and  adding  assessments,  we  find  that  the  cost  of  purchasing, 
maintaining,  defending,  and  developing  the  great  lode  for  twenty- 
one  years  was  $250,000,000.  Three  fourths  of  this  sum  came  from 
the  mines  themselves,  the  other  fourth  was  gathered  from  direct 
assessments.  The  prospectors  and  original  locators  had  received 
less  than  SKM),UK».  The  various  owners  paid  less  than  a  million 
dollars  out  of  their  own  pockets,  as  working  capital,  before  as- 
sessments and  the  stock-gambling  period  began.  Since  1880 
the  yield  of  the  Comstock  has  been  decreasing,  and  many  of 
the  mines  have  been  shut  down.  The  ledger  account  of  the  Com- 
stock with  the  public  remains  practically  unchanged. 

The  most  dramatic  events  in  the  story  of  the  Comstock  clus- 
ter about  a  series  of  struggles  for  its  control  during  the  ebb  and 
flow  of  alternate  borrasca  and  bonanza.  Nothing  was  lacking  to 
make  the  period  impressive.  The  financial  leaders  of  the  Pacific 
coast  were  conquering  Nevada,  while  another  group  of  men  were 
winning  victories  that  shortly  led  to  the  culminating  treasure  of 
the  lode,  and  while  the  indomitable  Sutro  was  toiling  in  his  great 
tunnel.  So  vast  and  ruthless  was  the  battle  that  its  far-reaching 
results  still  influence  politics  and  social  life  of  California  and 
Nevada ;  men  still  divide  upon  issues  which  began  in  the  depths 
of  the  Comstock  a  quarter  of  a  century  ago. 

In  1804  the  ore  deposits  were  worked  out,  and  ray  less  gloom 
settled  over  the  Comstock.  The  Bank  of  California,,  through  its 
resident  agent,  William  Sharon,  had  been  making  advances  on 
mills  and  allowing  the  mine  owners  to  overdraw  their  accounts. 
The  security  in  both  cases  was  only  undiscovered  ore,  and  if  the 
lode  were  really  exhausted  the  whole  camp  was  ruined.  Ralston, 
the  head  of  the  bank,  visited  Virginia  City  in  1865,  and  agreed 
with  Sharon  that  the  time  had  arrived  to  gain  control  of  the  dis- 
trict. Loans,  instead  of  being  lessened,  were  increased,  to  what 
extent  is  not  known,  but  it  was  afterward  said  by  Sharon  that  at 
one  time  before  1870  $3,000,000  of  the  $5,000,000  capital  of  the 
bank  was  on  the  Comstock.  In  June,  1867,  the  famous  mill  and 
mining  company  was  formed  by  W.  C.  Ralston,  William  Sharon, 
Alvinza  Hayward,  D.  O.  Mills,  Thomas  Bell,  Charles  Bonner, 
William  E.  Barron,  and  Thomas  Sunderland.  It  was  the  strongest 
possible  combination  of  capitalists  and  mining  men ;  its  business 
was  to  manage  the  mills  and  mines  that  had  now  fallen  into  the 


NEVADA    SILVER.  749 

hands  of  the  Bank  of  California  through  foreclosure  and  through 
manipulations  of  stock.  It  also  aimed  at  securing  control  of 
others,  and  ultimately  at  directing  the  output  of  the  entire  lode. 

There  are,  let  me  explain,  two  systems  of  handling  ores.  A 
mine  can  own  its  mills,  or  it  can  send  to  a  custom  mill.  On  the 
Comstock  the  mine-owners'  experiments  in  building  mills  had 
proved  disastrous.  The  independent  millman  was  a  more  efficient 
ore-worker  than  a  salaried  superintendent.  But  the  Comstock 
system  did  not  secure  the  permanent  welfare  of  the  outsiders. 
What  Prof.  Raymond  calls  "  the  piratical  policy  of  gutting  the 
mines  "  was  carried  on  in  bonanza  times  at  such  a  shocking  rate 
of  speed  that  it  unduly  stimulated  the  building  of  more  mills, 
and  then  left  the  mines  totally  unable  to  sustain  any  of  them.  It 
is  not  surprising  that  the  Union  Mill  and  Mining  syndicate  were 
soon  able  to  gather  in  seventeen  of  the  leading  mills  and  to  keep 
them  running  on  ore,  while  outside  mills  could  not  make  a  living. 
It  became  evident  that  the  substitution  of  Sharon  for  Stewart  as 
the  leading  personal  force  on  the  Comstock  was  in  reality  the 
most  complete  revolution  the  sagebrush  land  had  yet  known. 

Nevada  had  long  "  talked  railroad."  Legislatures,  Territorial 
and  State,  had  granted  many  charters,  but  after  a  few  abortive 
efforts  the  last  of  these  haphazard  schemes  was  dead.  Sharon, 
the  man  of  affairs,  sent  for  James,  of  the  Sierra  Nevada  Mine. 
The  following  conversation  is  said  to  have  occurred : 

"  Can  you  run  a  railroad  from  Virginia  City  to  the  Carson 
River  ?" 

"Yes." 

"  Do  it  at  once." 

Within  thirty  days  the  winding  course,  twenty-one  miles  long, 
was  surveyed ;  graders  were  at  work ;  rails  were  on  the  way ; 
men  were  hewing  ties  in  the  Sierras ;  an  obedient  Legislature  had 
passed  a  new  charter  and  had  authorized  $500,000  in  bonds  as  a 
bonus  to  the  road  ;  lastly,  the  mines  had  subscribed  $700,000.  It 
was  a  busy  month,  even  on  the  Comstock.  Extended  to  a  junc- 
tion of  the  Southern  Pacific  at  Reno,  the  Virginia  and  Truckee 
Railroad  cost  about  $3,500,000.  The  maximum  grade  is  116  feet  to 
the  mile ;  the  curves  of  the  track  in  the  thirteen  miles  and  a  half 
of  mountain  distance  make  seventeen  full  circles,  and  the  rise  is 
1,600  feet. 

Sharon  had  put  Chinese  graders  at  work,  but  the  miners7 
unions  of  Gold  Hill  and  Virginia  City  marched  out  a  thousand 
strong.  The  sheriff  halted  them,  and  they  sat  down  on  the  rocks 
to  hear  him  read  the  riot  act.  That  ended,  they  rose  with  shouts 
of  Homeric  laughter,  gave  three  cheers  for  the  sheriff,  and  moved 
resistlessly  on  the  graders'  camps.  The  Chinese  "  ran  like  rab- 
bits "  up  the  gulches.  The  miners  told  the  boss  to  quit  work,  and, 


-o  POPULAR   SCIENCE  MONTHLY. 

marching  back,  sent  word  to  Sharon  that  no  Chinamen  would  be 
allowed  in  the  district  under  penalty  of  a  strike  that  would  shut 
down  every  mine  on  the  lode.  In  twenty-four  hours  the  Chinese 
were  dismissed  and  white  graders  took  their  places.  Defeated 
here,  Sharon  silently  made  ready  for  the  real  labor  conflict  that 
he  foresaw.  It  began  when  the  first  trains  entered  Virginia 
City.  The  fine  old  silver  freighter,  in  Nevada  slang  the  "  mule 
skinner'';  the  bull-puncher  walking  sedately  beside  his  oxen; 
even  that  aristocrat  of  the  fraternity,  the  lordly  "  silk-popper/' 
flicking  his  playful  whiplash  at  the  leaders  as  he  drove  his  stage- 
coach down  Geiger's  grade— these,  all  these,  after  fierce,  useless 
struggles,  disappeared  into  the  unrailroaded  distance.  "  Sharon's 
iron  mules,"  as  they  said,  "  had  crowded  them  off." 

Mean  while  the  total  bullion  yield  of  the  lode,  which  was  $16,- 
000,000  in  1865,  continued  to  decrease  till  in  1869  it  was  only 
>,000.  None  knew  better  than  Sharon  and  his  associates  that 
although  borrasca  had  put  them  into  possession,  a  few  more 
years  of  borrasca  would  utterly  smash  their  fortunes.  There  had 
been  in  all  eleven  bonanzas  up  to  1869,  but  now  all  were 
"  worked  out,"  and  the  ordinary  ore  in  the  mines  not  only  grew 
poorer  and  scantier  on  the  lower  levels,  but  was  harder  to  work. 
Everything  was  in  eclipse.  The  miners  were  following  a  mere 
stringer  of  ore  on  the  nine-hundred  foot  level  of  Yellow  Jacket 
that  gave  Sharon  a  little  hope,  but  troubles  with  the  miners  and 
disastrous  fires  intensified  the  situation.  By  1870  some  of  the 
members  of  the  syndicate  began  to  weaken ;  it  was  openly  said 
that  the  Comstock  had  paid  its  last  dividend  ;  the  cities  of  the 
lode  were  trembling  on  the  verge  of  panic. 

The  famous  John  P.  Jones,  since  United  States  Senator,  was 
superintendent  at  Crown  Point,  and,  like  all  the  rest,  was  vainly 
looking  for  ore.  The  stock  fell  to  two  dollars  a  share,  making  the 
total  value  of  the  mine,  with  its  costly  plant,  only  $24,000,  and 
assessments  went  unpaid.  Late  in  1870  Jones  found  an  ore  body, 
and,  joining  forces  with  a  discontented  member  of  the  bank  syn- 
dicate, wrested  control  of  the  mine  from  Sharon  before  he  knew 
of  the  bonanza,  which  in  eighteen  months  more  raised  the  stock- 
market  value  of  Crown  Point  to  $22,000,000.  They  also  organized 
the  Nevada  Mill  and  Mining  Company  in  direct  opposition  to 
their  old  associates.  Nevertheless,  Sharon's  lesser  defeat  only 
emphasized  a  greater  victory.  His  interests  in  other  mines 
doubled  and  quadrupled  in  value,  empty  treasuries  were  filled 
by  outside  investors,  and  search  for  new  ore  bodies  was  prose- 
cuted with  renewed  energy. 

The  story  of  the  rise  of  Mackay  and  Fair  reads  like  a  leaf  from 
the  Arabian  Nights.  Like  Jones,  they  had  been  poor  and  un- 
known, working  for  daily  wages.  Associated  with  Flood  and 


NEVADA    SILVER.  751 

O'Brien,  they  discovered  the  Big  Bonanza,  the  richest  treasure  of 
the  Comstock.  Mackay  outranks  the  rest  of  the  group,  because 
his  rise  was  more  remarkable  and  his  grasp  of  circumstances 
more  firm.  From  toiling  in  the  lower  levels  he  rose  to  be  super- 
intendent of  one  of  the  smaller  Gold  Hill  mines.  Like  Fair,  he 
saved  every  dollar  and  put  it  into  stocks  under  his  own  control. 
Before  long  he  was  interested  in  "  Kentuck,"  a  rich  little  mine, 
and  it  began  to  pay  dividends  again.  His  own  statement  is  that 
for  years  he  had  labored  with  all  the  powers  of  mind  and  body 
to  make  himself  "  master  and  manager  of  the  greatest  mines  in 
the  world."  Kentuck  gave  him  the  start.  Mackay  and  Fair, 
now  associated  in  every  enterprise,  ventured  to  make  a  fight  for 
the  control  of  Hale  and  Norcross,  which  they  acquired  in  March, 
1869,  its  stock,  like  everything  else  on  the  lode,  being  greatly  de- 
pressed. Fair,  leaving  Ophir,  of  which  he  had  long  been  super- 
intendent, soon  put  Hale  and  Norcross  on  the  dividend  list.  Old 
Comstockers  still  praise  "  Uncle  Jimmy's  fine  nose  for  ore."  The 
mining  skill  of  Fair,  as  well  as  of  Mackay,  rose  at  times  into  the 
domains  of  genius.  Before  the  close  of  1869  they  controlled  Sav- 
age and  Bullion.  This  proved  a  bad  affair,  and  nearly  ruined 
them.  The  Bank  of  California  millionaires  began  to  feel  relieved 
in  mind.  In  a  year  or  two,  they  said,  Mackay  will  be  back  in  the 
face  of  a  drift,  at  four  dollars  a  day,  and  Fair  can  be  made  useful 
somewhere  on  a  superintendent's  salary.  But  the  Mackay  firm, 
still  convinced  of  the  reasonableness  of  their  system  of  explora- 
tion, concentrated  their  last  resources  upon  a  long-neglected  por- 
tion of  the  lode. 

The  Comstock  mines  begin  at  the  north  with  Sierra  Nevada, 
3,300  feet  on  the  lode ;  coming  south,  Union  Consolidated  follows, 
600  feet ;  then  Mexican,  the  same  size  ;  then  Ophir,  675  feet.  All 
these  were  being  worked  on  a  large  scale.  Next  came  a  group  of 
small  neglected  claims  whose  titles  were  in  dispute,  1,310  feet  in 
all,  followed  by  Best  and  Belcher,  Gould  and  Curry,  Savage,  and 
Hale  and  Norcross,  which  completed  the  famous  north- end,  or 
Virginia  City,  group  of  mines.  The  neglected  section,  600  feet  of 
which  was  afterward  known  as  California,  and  710  feet  as  Con- 
solidated Virginia,  was  worth  only  $40,000  on  the  stock  market. 
As  Mackay  and  his  associates  bought,  the  stock  rose ;  the  three- 
fourths  interest  they  desired  cost  $100,000.  They  took  control  in 
January,  1871,  and  began  mining  operations,  sinking  a  new  and 
large  shaft  and  pushing  a  drift  north  from  Gould  and  Curry, 
nearly  1,200  feet  below  the  surface,  by  a  special  contract  with  the 
owners  of  the  mines  crossed. 

One  day  Fair  discovered  a  slight  change  in  the  barren  rock 
and  determined  to  follow  a  narrow  seam  hardly  thicker  than  a 
knife  blade.  Sometimes  it  was  only  a  film  of  clay,  but  occasion- 


752  POPULAR   SCIENCE  MONTHLY. 

ally  a  pin  point  of  ore  was  seen.  For  hundreds  of  feet  the  miners 
•  IriYted  beside  this  slender  clew.  Fair  became  ill,  and  the  work- 
men lost  it,  but  on  his  return  he  picked  up  the  ore  thread.  They 
u.iv  now  a  hundred  feet  in  Consolidated  Virginia  ground,  and 
the  price  of  the  stock  began  to  break,  when  suddenly  the  stringer 
widened  to  a  vein  of  sixty-dollar  ore.  In  October,  on  the  1,167- 
foot  level,  the  top  of  the  "Big  Bonanza"  was  uncovered;  the 
drift  went  148  feet  through  solid  ore  54  feet  wide.  The  great 
kidney-shaped  mass  extended  downward  below  the  1,500-foot 
level,  and  widened  to  150  feet  and  even  to  300  feet.  The  ore  grew 


GOULD  AND  CURRY  MINERS  READY  FOR  WORK. 

richer  and  richer  as  the  men  advanced.  Nothing  like  it  had  ever 
been  known  in  the  history  of  mining. 

Here,  in  the  heart  of  the  Comstock,  hundreds  of  naked  miners 
were  soon  hewing  down  the  ore.  On  all  sides  of  a  pyramidal 
mass  of  timber  which  grew  larger  every  minute  were  twinkling 
stars  of  lamps.  Everything  in  the  bonanza  was  sent  to  the  mill 
as  fast  as  it  was  quarried  out,  and  some  of  it  was  so  rich  that 
waste  rock  was  added  to  aid  amalgamation.  An  average  block 
of  ore  three  feet  square  contained  from  two  hundred  to  five  hun- 
dred dollars  in  silver  and  gold.  The  richest  spot  was  near  the 
California  line,  where  clusters  of  malleable  silver  in  coiled  wires 
occurred  beside  shining  stephanite,  pale-green  and  steel-gray 
chlorides,  and  lustrous  black  silver  glance,  besides  masses  of  the 
most  exquisite  crystals  of  every  color  known  to  the  mineralogist. 

In  six  years  Consolidated  Virginia  milled  682,355  tons  of  ore, 
producing  $60,732,882  ;  California,  in  four  years,  milled  486,043 
tons,  producing  $43,727,837.  The  total  yield  of  the  Big  Bonanza 
had  been  nearly  $105,000,000,  and  more  than  $73,000,000  had  been 


NEVADA    SILVER.  753 

paid  in  dividends.  Extreme  haste  was  necessary  in  extracting 
the  ore,  so  great  was  the  danger  of  a  disaster.  Mackay  and  Fair 
hardly  rested  day  or  night  till  the  bonanza  was  exhausted.  Out- 
side, all  the  exchanges  of  the  world  were  fighting  over  Corn- 
stocks.  The  two  mines,  rated  in  1871  at  $40,000,  were  rated  in 
1875  at  $160,000,000.  Thirty  mines  on  the  lode  were  now  valued 
at  about  $400,000,000.  So  much  money  was  withdrawn  from 
legitimate  business  and  flung  into  the  stock  market  that  when 
the  inevitable  crash  came  and  the  Bank  of  California  failed, 
every  industry  of  the  Pacific  coast  was  checked  for  years. 

In  the  midst  of  the  bonanza  excitement  Virginia  City  was 
swept  by  a  great  fire,  the  culmination  of  a  long  series  of  mining 
disasters,  and  in  a  few  hours  a  territory  half  a  mile  square  was  a 
mass  of  ruins.     The  mining  companies  lost  acres  of  supplies  and 
lumber;    Ophir,  Consolidated  Virginia,  and  California  had  all 
their  buildings  burned;   two   thousand    stores,  hotels,  lodging 
houses,  and  dwellings  were  destroyed.     The  very  next  day  men 
were  at  work  in  the  ruins,  on  the  rugged  hillsides,  in  the  ravines, 
by  the  monstrous  waste  dumps,  clearing  away,  rebuilding  on  a 
still  more  massive  scale  the  giant  machine  shops,  hoisting  works, 
and  mills.  The  two  bonanza 
mines   lost   $1,500,000,   and 
yet  they  managed  to  keep 
up  regular  dividends  at  the 
rate  of  $1,080,000  a  month  ! 

All  these  years  one  in- 
domitable mill  owner  and 
engineer,  Adolph  Sutro,had 
been  fighting  single-handed 
the  men  who  controlled  the 
Comstock.  Away  back  in 
1860  he  had  advised  a  deep 
adit,  and  in  1865  he  obtained 
a  franchise  for  the  Sutro 
Tunnel  Company,  with  Sen- 
ator Stewart  as  president. 
The  mining  companies 
bound  themselves  to  pay 
perpetual  royalties  after  the 
completion  of  the  tunnel. 
Congress,  assuming  the  reg- 
ulation of  the  immense  ADOLPH  SuTRO 
mining  interests  involved, 

passed  an  act  which,  still  further  protecting  the  enterprise,  made 
the  very  titles  of  the  mining  companies  dependent  upon  the  ful- 
fillment of  their  obligations.  Large  subscriptions  were  made,  and 


754  POPULAR   SCIENCE  MONTHLY. 

it  was  expected  that  the  bonds  would  sell  readily.  But  early  in 
the  Bank  of  California  syndicate  began  to  perceive  that  the 
Sutro  Tunnel,  delivering  ore  at  the  Carson  River  mills  and  mining 
supplies  nearly  two  thousand  feet  below  the  surface,  might  very 
easily  destroy  their  control  of  the  Com  stock  and  its  dependent 
industries.  Therefore  they  declared  war,  and  opened  hostilities. 
Stewart  resigned ;  subscriptions  were  all  withdrawn ;  shrewd  law- 
yers and  politicians  were  employed  to  obtain  the  repeal  of  the 
franchise  and  of  the  act  of  Congress ;  financiers  in  New  York  and 
Europe  were  warned  not  to  touch  Sutro  bonds. 

Years  after  Sutro  said  in  conversation :  "  Ah,  it  was  a  hard 
thing  to  have  so  many  old  friends  in  San  Francisco  and  Virginia 
City  actually  afraid  to  be  seen  talking  to  me  after  the  fiat  had 
gone  forth  that  I  must  be  crushed  at  any  cost.  But  I  kept 
on  fighting.  There  was  one  time,  I  remember,  when  I  had  to 
go  to  Washington  to  save  my  interests  from  destruction.  I 
had  no  money.  All  the  profits  of  my  mill  had  been  swallowed 
up.  But  I  had  a  lot  in  a  little  California  town,  and  I  sold  it 
for  two  hundred  dollars,  and  with  that  I  managed  to  get  to 
Washington.  I  stayed  there  somehow  that  winter,  poor  as  I 
was,  and  fought  my  enemies,  and  came  out  ahead.  But  their 
newspapers  said  I  had  bribed  Congress — out  of  my  two  hundred 
dollars!" 

After  making  the  most  strenuous  efforts  Sutro  failed  to  place 
his  bonds.  In  1869,  turning  for  help  to  the  working  miners,  he 
delivered  a  remarkable  address  in  Virginia  City.  Large  cartoons 
illustrated  his  bitter  eloquence.  One  showed  Bill  Sharon's  Big 
Woodpile,  another  Bill  Sharon's  Crooked  Railroad,  a  third  the 
then  recent  fire  in  Yellow  Jacket,  where  forty-two  lives  had  been 
lost  that  might  have  been  saved  had  the  Sutro  Tunnel  existed.  He 
appealed  to  the  miners'  unions  for  stock  subscriptions  with  which 
to  begin  work.  "  Will  the  people  of  Nevada  see  me  crushed  out 
now  ?  .  .  .  Come  in  together.  Let  two  thousand  laboring  men 
pay  in  ten  dollars  apiece  a  month,  and  insure  the  construction  of 
the  tunnel,  carrying  with  it  the  control  of  the  mines.  .  .  .  From 
dependents  you  will  be  masters."  With  such  sentences  he  ad- 
dressed the  working  miners  of  the  Comstock,  who  actually  raised 
fifty  thousand  dollars  in  a  few  weeks,  and  on  October  19th  reso- 
lute Sutro  broke  ground  in  his  great  undertaking.  Nevertheless 
the  tunnel  was  steadily  opposed  by  the  California  and  Nevada 
Senators  and  by  nearly  all  the  mining  men  on  the  Comstock. 
The  history  of  the  long  struggle  is  embalmed  in  the  pages  of  the 
Congressional  Record  and  innumerable  public  documents.  Sutro 
bonds  were  finally  sold,  but  the  difficulties  of  the  undertaking 
proved  greater  than  had  been  expected,  and  the  period  of  the 
bonanzas  passed  before  the  lode  was  reached. 


NEVADA    SILVER. 


755 


The  progress  of  the  work  was  dramatic.  The  face  of  the  rock 
"  showed  a  temperature  of  114°."  Two  or  three  hours  was  all  that 
the  strongest  men  could  work.  Endurance  was  strained  to  its 
utmost  capacity.  Man  after  man  dropped  down  on  the  rocky 
floor  and  was  carried  to  the  surface  babbling  and  incoherent. 
This  strenuous  toil  continued  till  July  8,  1878,  when  Sutro  him- 
self, half  naked  like  one  of  his  miners,  labored  at  the  front,  and 
finally  crawled  through  a  jagged  hole  into  the  Savage  drift, 
"  overcome  with  excitement,"  as  one  of  the  newspaper  accounts 


SUTBO  TUNNEL,  SUTRO,  NEVADA. 

said.     What  had  been  contemptuously  called  "Sutro's   coyote 
hole  "  thus  became  an  accomplished  fact. 

Through  such  passionate  conflicts  as  those  described  the 
heroes  of  the  Comstock  continued  making  workshops,  mills, 
machinery ;  building  two  marvelously  picturesque  towns  along 
the  lode,  and  hiding  underneath  the  greater  creation — the  real 
City  of  the  Comstock.  Here,  in  deeps  below  deeps,  are  three- 
mile  streets,  mysterious  labyrinths,  water  torrents,  burning 
heats,  perils  numberless,  legends  that  might  serve  to  fill  a  vol- 
ume. Time  was  when  twelve  thousand  miners  toiled  in  these 
vast  galleries,  swinging  picks,  hammering  drills,  raising  timbers 
to  place,  climbing  to  the  stopes,  breaking  down  the  ore,  pushing 
lines  of  loaded  cars  to  stations  on  the  hoisting  shafts.  They  were 
superb  athletes,  with  muscles  evenly  developed  by  their  labor. 
A  few  of  them  remain,  scraping  out  the  ore  left  in  older  work- 
ings and  maintaining  to  the  fullest  degree  the  fine  old-time  pride 
of  their  craft.  For  sixteen  years,  however,  the  mines  have  been 


756  POPULAR   SCIENCE  MONTHLY. 

in  borrasca,  and  they  may  never  again  pay  a  profit  to  their 
owners.  Still,  with  faith  and  endurance  that  are  sublime,  the 
heroes  of  the  Comstock  cling  to  its  fallen  fortunes,  and  continue 
the  search  for  new  bonanzas. 

[EDITORIAL  NOTK. — The  full  story  of  the  mines,  as  illustrated  by  the  great  Comstock 
lode,  prepared  hy  Mr.  Sliinn,  will  constitute  the  next  volume  of  the  Story  of  the  West  Series, 
edited  li\  Mi.  Uipley  Hitchcock,  to  be  published  by  D.  Appleton  &  Co.  in  October.  Our 
readers  need  hardly  !u>  told  that  Mr  Sliinn  hits  special  qualifications  in  his  familiar  acquaint- 
ance \\ith  the  suliject  and  his  rare  literary  skill,  which  will  impart  special  interest  and  value 
to  this  work  | 


A  MEASURE  OF  MENTAL  CAPACITY. 

BY  DK.  EMIL  KEAEPEL1N, 

PROFESSOR   OF   PSYCHIATRY   AT   HEIDELBERG. 

(From  an  Address  delivered  in  behalf  of  the  Heidelberyer  Frauenverein.) 

•e  able  to  calculate  almost  precisely  the  amount  of  woi 

given  machine — as  a  steam  engine  or  an  electitfc-lmnt- 
ing  plan%4i|  capable  of  performing,  and  the  amount  of 
will  be  revjixed  to  develop  the  calculated  power.  TOnen  we 
come  to  maiyye  are  much  less  certain,  although  a  sMJmil  army 
surgeon  can  fl^l  almost  at  a  glance  whether  the  reoj^cTit  standing 
before  him  is  sVpng  enough  to  meet  the  requirements  of  the 
service,  and  thereNare  machines  in  the  marketMiat  will  inform 
us  in  what  time  we^an  pull  a  given  weigh^to  a  given  height. 
But  we  have  no  meafeire  that  we  can  apply  to  the  capacity  for 
mental  work,  and  no  utets  of  mental  valuation.  The  most  we 
can  do  is  to  compare  the^bitellectuaL/apacity  of  one  man  with 
that  of  another  by  the  mental  results^mey  have  severally  achieved 
in  practice.  When  we  wisn\p  te^t  the  fitness  of  a  candidate  for 
a  position  of  trust  or  responsibafry,  we  subject  him  to  an  exami- 
nation, which  relates,  howeve^  mbstly  to  what  he  has  learned, 
and  from  which  we  guess/m  a  rat™?  indirect  way  what  he  may 
be  capable  of  doing  in^ne  future,  atod  with  relation  to  other 
matters  than  those  onXnich  we  examineitim ;  and  the  test  is  very 
often  deceptive :  for  those  who  have  macte  the  most  brilliant 
displays  in  the  examination  frequently  failNn  capacity  to  make 
practical  application  of  what  they  have  learnHd  only  theoretic- 
ally ;  or  theViail  by  irregularity,  frequent  and  narked  changes 
in  theip  disposition  to  work,  want  of  endurance,  orNtoo  great  de- 
pendence/^n  external  conditions,  of  which  the  examination  gives 
no  prediction.  Such  efforts  as  have  been  made  to  obvS^te  this 
diffiamty  have  hitherto  failed  to  meet  their  object. 

Lt  has,  however,  recently  become  possible  to  reach  fairly  ap- 
proximate conclusions  concerning  mental  capacity,  such  as  other- 


The  BEST 

Fe  and  Endowment  Policies 


As  well  as 

Accident   Policies 


In  the  market 
are  issued  by 


TRAVELERS 


OF  HARTFORD 


The  Best  is  always  the  Cheapest 
Insurance  must  Insure,  or  even  a 
Low  Price  is  so  much  money 
Thrown  Away  <*  J«  J*  * 


Over  Thirty-Two  Years  of  Success 
Premium  Receipts  in  1895  nearly 
FIVE  MILLION  DOLLARS,* 


}s,  ${9,425,000       Surplus,  $2,661,000       Paid  Policy-Holders  over  $29,000,000 
JAMES  G.  BATTERSON,  President.  JOHN  E.  MORR&  Ass't  Secretary. 

:)SEPti  GIUOTT'S  NEW  PENS. 


ixtra 
nooth- 

!SS  Of 

'oint. 


OAMOKD-STUBI 

|!|tj;u!tP.eg<flgPSii£aii 

1O08   DiAMXDND-STUB. 

SEPHGI 

ANK 

mijiyi^i 

1044  BANK  PEN. 


1O43  PROBOSCULAR. 


1O47  MULTISCRIPT. 


1O15  VERTICULAR. 


1046  VERTIGRAPH. 


Special 

Ease 

of 

Action. 


<hese  pens  have  the  extra  smoothness  of  point,  also  the  special  ease  and  firmness  of  action  required 
,ireful  business  writing,  or , for  the  rapid  scribbling  of  profession^  and  literary  men. 

]or  fine  and  extra-fine  writing  recourse  may  be  had  to  the  Gillott  series  of  pens  so  long  familiar  to 
]eople :  >  %% 

i          303/404,    170,   604  E.  F.,  332,   601  E.  F. 

I  Pari$  iMedal.  Chicago.  Award, 

i  The  Standard  Pens  of  the  World.   \ 


ohn  Street, 
:w  YORK. 


JOSEPH   GILLOTT   &   SONS, 

HENRY  HOE,  Sole  Agent. 


Rp  Yfo  LT 


POWDER 


Saves 

Lafcor,  Time, 

Money— Makes 

the  food  more 

delicious  and 

wholesome.' 


•ABSOLTOLY-PURE- 

L  cream  of  tartar  baking  powder.  Highest  of  all 
in  leavening  strength.— Latest  United  States 
Government  Food  Report. 

ROYAL  BAKING  POWDER  Co.,  NEW  YORK. 


IVORY 
SOAP 


There  is  a  "com- 
fortable feeling'  that 
comes  after  a  bath 
with  Ivory  Soap. 


THE  PROCTER  &  GAMBLE  Co.,  CIN>TI. 


THE 


NUMBER  SIX  MODEL 

REMINGTON 

Standard*  typewriter, 

MANY   NOTABLE   IMPROVEMENTS. 

MATCHLESS   CONSTRUCTION. 
UNEQUALED    DURABILITY. 
UNRIVALED    SPEED. 

WYCKOFF,  SEAMANS  &  BENEDICT, 

327  Broadway,  New  York. 


The  Dyspeptic  and 

convalescent  find  in  SOMATOSE  a 
tasty,  easily  digested  and  nourish- 
ing food.  It  never  palls  on  the  ap- 
petite, and  rapidly  increases  weight. 

ofomatoae 

A  Perfect  Food,  Tonic 

and  Restorative* 

It  is  a  powder  made  from  the  most  nour- 
ishing elements  of  meat,  prepared  for  the 
nutriment  and  stimulus  of  weak  systems. 
May  be  taken  dry,  or  in  milk,  water,  etc. 

At  druggists,  in  2  oz.,  X,  %  and  i  Id.  tins. 

Also  the  following  combinations,  Somatose-Bis- 
cuit,  Somatose-Cocoa,  Somatose-Chocolate — each 
containing  10  per  cent.  Somatose.  Very  conven- 
ient and  palatable  preparations. 

Pamphlets  wailed  by  Sckieffelin  &  Ca.tNev)  York, 
agents  for  Farbenfabriken  vonn.  Friedr.  Rayer  &  Co., 
Elberfeld. 

flTOWTOW^^ 


